Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Why this Homeschooled is Homeschooling and cool stuff like that

The most frequently asked homeschooling question I received when I was a kid was "How much time do you spend doing schoolwork everyday?"....boring...
Now the most frequently asked homeschooling question I receive is basically, now mind you I paraphrase how people actually word it, "How do you think you turned out as a completely home schooled child?"...now this is an exciting question to answer so everyone set down and enjoy your morning coffee and I'll tell you about it.  I've got to be quick though because I'm running a private school out of my home and it opens in about 30min.

This will not be a blog post to try to convince you to home school.  It will not be a blog post to pull my arrogant home-schooled-are-smarter-and-more-spiritual-card.  I shredded that card a while back and I hope I never come across as a pompous self righteous home educator ever again.  This is more of a thank you to what my parents did for me and my mission statement as a 2nd generation home school parent.  I hope it will be an encouragement to those who are just starting to educate their children and feel like the results are so far away and a bit vague and scary.  I didn't turn out scary, did I?  I think my public schooled husband just goof awed at me.  Again, I say this over and over: we really really don't want to mess up our kids and we really really want them to grow up to absolutely be in love with the Lord and may He please forgive us if we do anything but our very best and we know He'll take care of the rest.  Oh and also, this may surprise you but I really don't believe in using the Bible to prove that home schooling is more godly.  The truth is that educating children changes with each culture and each era and each family circumstance.  Please raise Deuteronomy 6 kids! That IS God's calling for all of us but heaven forbid that I take that passage and shove it in your face and say that I'm better than you.

I'm cooler than you though.  What?  Home schoolers are the new cool!

Okay, there are maybe 300 reasons why Richard and I chose to home school but really they could all fit under 3 categories that melt my heart with gladness when I am gathered around the table with our piles of books and piles of children.

TIME with them
There is so little of that T word right? My oldest just turned 7! That's just not okay with me. Two more of those 7's and she could be married! Their are so few years that they get to spend with us so I want them near me and loved and taught by me and my husband.  I want to be the one that teaches them to read and to be there to answer questions like "If Jesus died on the cross for our sins then why do we still sin?" or "Why did people make up all these sight words just to confuse little kids?" I want to be there and discover the creativity that comes out of nowhere.  Anna is so much like me and just want to dance and draw and write and be off in Anna Land and I love it.  I already see that Caleb is going to be over my head before I know it and I'll have to find him a science club so he can be smarter than me at the age of 8 so let me know if you hear of any smart clubs around here.

TIME with the church and the Lord
Really the only difference I saw with my private/public schooled friends that grew up with godly involved parents is that they had like 8 hours more schoolwork than I had every day.  I really felt sorry for the poor things though I secretly laughed behind all the fiction books I had time to read.  This freed me up for tons more time to be involved in ministry.  I knew kids who actually didn't get to go to youth group because they had too much homework.  Now that's just lame.  There was really nothing more important to my parents then that we be involved in church and we took every opportunity we could to serve and to learn more about the Lord.  

TIME spent is time remembered
This is hard one to explain but I'll try.  My children are in their most influential years.  Their mind is like a picture album.  Every day they put away more and more memories of conversations, songs they've learned and TV they've watched and hugs they've received and that time you made cookies with them and that book you just finished reading and how their mother gets so cranky when daddy is deployed and on and on and on.  It's all filed away in their brain.  As their mother, I want it to be filled to the brim with good influences.  With pictures of how the Lord sees everything. 

Well, I hear the troops getting restless out there.  I need to put on my bunny slippers and go read some Greek history with them. You know why my mom is the smartest person in the world?  Because she took all twelve grades 11 times in a row.  I'm only going to take them four times in a row so I'll only be a little smarter in ten years. 

Thank you, mom and dad for doing all this for me.  I think I turned out okay.  I can't spell and I make up words but honestly, I loved my childhood and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Not even Jo March's.  Right now, I'm having tons of fun giving my kids much of the same good stuff. 

You guys have a fun day and stay as cool as home schooled.